Egypt in 2000 BC

Mentuhotep II, circa -2004.

Note: This is so far back in time that dates can be off by up to 65 years or so. I follow the dates in “The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt” (2008) by Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson. 

• Location: north-eastern Africa, the last 1,000 km of the Nile where ships can freely sail north of the rocky Cataracts. Also: nearby oases.
• Population: 1 million.
• Major cities: north to south: Herakleopolis, Asyut, Abydos, Dendera, Thebes, Elephantine.
  • capital: Thebes, the provincial capital that won the recent civil war.
• Language: Middle Egyptian – the classic form of the language.
• Religion: idol worship in the temples of Osiris, Ra, Hathor, Isis, Horus, Nut, etc; magic spells; Coffin Texts, divine judgement, Osiris as personal god, democratization of the afterlife.
• Government: Mentuhotep III, a god-king of the 11th Dynasty.
• Economy: Command economy. Wheat, barley, flax, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, honey, figs, beer, monumental architecture.
  • imports: gold  (Nubia), copper (Sinai), cedar (Byblos).
• Currency: none.
• Transport: Nile River, sail boats, barges, donkeys. Rare: roads, horses, and wheeled transport. Camels unknown.
• Technology: irrigation, mud bricks, stone blocks, paper, glass, bee-keeping, linen (not cotton or silk), bronze (finally), mechanical lock, saw, alphabet.
  • warfare: bows and arrows, spears, clubs, maces. No horses or chariots. Not even helmets or armour. Even the arrows are not tipped with metal – just flint or ebony instead. Mercenaries from Nubia and Palestine.

The last 100 years: the -2000s (the BC mirror years of our own time):

• Kings:
  • 10th Dynasty (Herakleopolis): Khety II and others. Rules northern Egypt till -2025.
  • 11th Dynasty (Thebes): Intef II, Intef III, Mentuhotep II (reunites Egypt under one dynasty), Mentuhotep III.
• Civil war between Herakleopolis in the north and Thebes in the south. Herakleopolis fell in about -2038 followed by mopping-up operations going after loyalist troops as far as the Dakhla Oasis out in the Western Desert. But the moral turning point came decades earlier when Herakleopolis retook the holy city of Abydos, looting and burning the ancient tombs of the 1st Dynasty (-3100 to -2890). It was said that “the stars fall upside down on their faces and are unable to raise themselves”. Even Khety II of Herakleopolis said, “Egypt fought in the graveyard, destroying tombs in vengeful destruction. As I did, so it happened, as is done to one who strays from god’s path.”
• The Middle Kingdom (-2055 to -1650) is the name Western scholars give to the 400-some-year period of peace and prosperity that followed the civil war.
• Karnak is being built in Thebes. It is a temple to Ra and to a local war god, Amun. In about 800 years it will become the largest religious building in the world and Amun the most powerful god.
• The rise of Osiris: with the democratization of the afterlife anyone has a chance after death of going to Osiris’s paradise of the Field of Reeds. To make it your good deeds will have to outweigh the bad, and you will need a guidebook, the:
• Coffin Texts – these were knock-off versions of the Pyramid Texts of the kings and queens of old. Some came complete with maps! You could have a papyrus copy or have it painted right onto your coffin!
• The alphabet invented by Palestinian mercenaries as a knock-off form of hieroglyphics.

Meanwhile in Britain, they are moving the bluestones of Stonehenge, but they keep falling over. Stonehenge was not built in a day and there were periods of poor construction, like this one.

– Abagond, +2023. 

See also:

• Ankhtify
• Egyptian century of the week
  • Egypt in 3100 BC
  • Egypt in 3000 BC
  • Egypt in 2900 BC
  • Egypt in 2800 BC
  • Egypt in 2700 BC
  • Egypt in 2600 BC
  • Egypt in 2500 BC
  • Egypt in 2400 BC
  • Egypt in 2300 BC
  • Egypt in 2200 BC
  • Egypt in 2100 BC
  • Egypt
  • Egypt: a brief history
  • Ancient Egypt
• Egyptian
  • Egyptian hieroglyphics
• alphabet
• Egyptian gods
  • Ra
  • Osiris
  • Amun
• Pyramid Text
• Coffin Text
• Nubia
• The British
  • The British through time: the last 10,000 years
  • Whitehawk Woman
  • Stonehenge

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